Charles Rangel

Charles Rangel (11 June 1930-) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-NY 18) from 3 January 1971 to 3 January 1973 (succeeding Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and preceding Ed Koch), from NY 19 from 3 January 1973 to 3 January 1983 (succeeding Bella Abzug and preceding Mario Biaggi), from NY 16 from 3 January 1983 to 3 January 1993 (succeeding Chuck Schumer and preceding Jose E. Serrano), from NY 15 from 3 January 1993 to 3 January 2013 (succeeding S. William Green and preceding Serrano), and from NY 13 from 3 January 2013 to 3 January 2017 (succeeding Michael Grimm and preceding Adriano Espaillat).

Biography
Charles Rangel was born in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City in 1930, the son of a Puerto Rican father and an African-American mother. He served as a US Army artilleryman during the Korean War, and he earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his bravery at the Battle of Kunu-ri in 1950. He became a lawyer in 1960 before becoming an Assistant US Attorney and legal counsel during the first half of the 1960s, and he served in the State Assembly from 1967 to 1971. From 1971 to 2017, he served a total of 46 years as a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives, and he had solidly liberal views. He became a leader in New York politics, and he helped to change the face of Harlem and other inner-city areas with the national Empowerment Zone Act. The friendly and cheerful Rangel was able to compromise with the Republicans, but he was also known to be blunt and outspoken, and he was arrested at several political demonstrations. During the 2000s, he supported the reinstatement of the draft due to his opposition to the Iraq War; he felt that, if parents knew that their sons would be drafted into the military, they would be more hesitant to support overseas wars such as Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2010, he was censured due to ethics violations and failures to abide by tax laws, and he decided to retire in 2016, as he was growing old, and had faced strong primary challenges in what had since become a majority-Hispanic district.